Recommended Reading for February 15th

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

And some of us might rightly find it insulting to be referred to as the ones that others had to be oh-so-tragically “lumped in with” (you know, “crazy”, “low functioning”, “retarded”, “autistic”, or other categories that people seem to do their darndest to distance themselves from). Like we have disability cooties or something from the way some people behave, and like having the medical people put us in the same category as our “betters” is such a terrible threat (and like it changes anything about who any of us really are). […]

Anyway as much as this is a rant against snobbery it is also a call to remember what is important. Look to that beautiful shifting central set of attributes that make us alike and different. Stop using the periphery to divide us.

Why is this important? There’s a couple of different reasons; for one thing gender identity disorders and sexual dysfunctions are listed in the DSM, (yes even sexual dysfunctions caused by medical/health issues,) which is a powerful force behind having disorders recognized, researched, diagnosed, and treated. The manual is not without a fair share of controversy, however, particularly from a feminist perspective.

There is a new childhood mental disorder being proposed for DSM-V: temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria (TDD). When I first read its criteria, my thoughts were: “Finally, it’s about time people are acknowledging not all children’s irritability is bad behavior.” Quite honestly, if this disorder had been around in DSM-IV in 1994, I would’ve been a surefire candidate for a diagnosis, except for the fact that autism should be ruled out first – but then again, I’m not sure autism would’ve been the first thing a shrink thought of when seeing me if TDD had been on the books.

Those of us who live with invisible illnesses live in two worlds – the one where we “pass” if we are having a good day, and the world we retreat into when our symptoms flare. We may drop out of sight for a day or two or three, but people are so busy they may not notice we’ve been gone.

This is a transcript of Temple Grandin’s first interview with the Autism Women’s Network after the premiere of HBO Films’s biopic Temple Grandin. She also talks about augmentative communication and education. […]

Temple Grandin: Mick Jackson picked out Claire Danes. The reason why he picked her out was he’d seen her do a reenactment of the Andrew Wyeth painting “Christina’s World,” which is a painting of a lady that’s crippled. Claire Danes dragged herself across the street in New York like she was Christina, and then Mick decided that she’d be the one. Then, of course, Claire Danes, she became me. She didn’t just act me and learn the lines—she became me.